Twitter has been in the news lately with changes to its app and service. While features seem to continually change with Twitter, what you need to do to succeed with the network has not. Here’s how to build your influence on Twitter.

Start Conversations with People Who Are Talking

You know to start conversations to build relationships online, but it matters who you’re talking to. Tweeting at someone who never responds or trying to start a conversation with someone who hasn’t been on there account in weeks is waste of time. Look at the people you follow in your feed and see who’s really talking. Those people always tweeting with @ signs are those mostly likely to engage back. Conversations with these chatty people will help you build your network.

Talk About Trends Relevant to Your Business

What should you be talking about? Anything that’s relevant to your business. With GDI this can be site design, marketing ideas or networking events. Users search on sites like Twitter for people talking about what they are interested in and then follow them. Use keywords related to your business in each tweet and include hashtags (#) to make sure you can be found.

Follow Up and Organize

Just because you had a Twitter conversation with someone doesn’t mean they are a reliable part of your network. Go farther to ask them to connect on LinkedIn and share some ideas that can help you both. Create lists on Twitter to sort people you follow so you know who you’ve interacted with and why they could be helpful.

By now you know how important social media can be to building your business. It gives you a whole new world to market to and network with while providing a wealth of information. Just signing up with the big social media sites won’t help you grow your network, you need to be proactive and leverage your presence. Here are three simple ways to do so.

Start Conversations with People Who Are Talking

You know to start conversations to build relationships online, but it matters who you’re talking to. Tweeting at someone who never responds or trying to start a conversation with someone who hasn’t been on there account in weeks is waste of time. Look at the people you follow in your feed and see who’s really talking. Those people always tweeting with @ signs are those mostly likely to engage back. Conversations with these chatty people will help you build your network.

Talk About Trends Relevant to Your Business

What should you be talking about? Anything that’s relevant to your business. With GDI this can be site design, marketing ideas or networking events. Users search on sites like Twitter for people talking about what they are interested in and then follow them. Use keywords related to your business in each tweet and include hashtags (#) to make sure you can be found.

Follow Up and Organize

Just because you had a Twitter conversation with someone doesn’t mean they are a reliable part of your network. Go farther to ask them to connect on LinkedIn and share some ideas that can help you both. Create lists on Twitter to sort people you follow so you know who you’ve interacted with and why they could be helpful.

Social Media is great for building your network. If you’ve yet to join Twitter because it seems overwhelming, it’s time to change that. Just a few tips can help you to truly utilize the service and grow your network and influence.

Engage

Once you join Twitter, don’t go silent. This isn’t an open invite to babble either, unless you don’t want any followers. Balance your general statement tweets with tweets that engage others. Post that engage other can be ones that ask questions or any post where you @ another user. You’re not limited to engagement with your followers; you can tweet @ anyone to start a conversation and hopefully a connection.

Build a Following

Why do you follow someone? This is the question to ask yourself when building a following. The qualities that cause you to follow one user are those you want to emulate and build you follow. Post content that is worthy of a retweet like great videos or blog posts. Tweet on the trending topics that you can find on the left-hand side of your feed, other users following them will see your tweet. Stay topical. Tweeting on the news and current trends helps you to set yourself apart as a thought leader people will want to follow. The followers you gain can quickly become part of your network as you engage with them.

Don’t Link Blast

Sending out only tweets that link to your WebSite or blog is a quick way to get people to ignore you. Balance any links to your own site with tweets without links, conversations with others in your network and even retweets of others. This shows you are on Twitter to engage in conversations and not just self promote.